Thee Oh Sees - Putrifiers II (In The Red)
Thee Oh Sees are the chief creative vehicle of prolific singer/guitarist John Dwyer, who has previously fronted two-piece noise-punkers Pink And Brown and primitive garage-rock trio Coachwhips, among others. He's been using variations on the name Thee Oh Sees since the late 90s, but it progressed from a solo project into a real band about six years ago. Since then, they've been churning out material at a high rate, and Putrifiers II (as far as I know, there is no first volume) is their seventh studio album to be released since 2008. Thus far, there's been no drop in quality from album to album, and Putrifiers II keeps the streak intact, presenting the listener with an excellent collection of psychedelic tunes. There's significant evolution from previous Thee Oh Sees albums to be observed here, in fact, with Dwyer taking things in a poppier direction than the band's sound on last year's more rocked-out Carrion Crawler/The Dream.
"Hang A Picture" and "Flood's New Light" distinguish themselves immediately, standing out on first listen as upbeat tunes that sound as if they were lifted directly from a late 60s psychedelic record. The instrumental configuration in which the group chooses to perform on these two songs creates a particularly interesting dynamic; rather than using rock n' roll's standard distorted electric guitar sound, the guitars on these tracks are jangly acoustics, which are then undergirded by a grumbling fuzz bass sound. In this way, the riffs in the song still sound tough, but also contain an overtly melodic element that would otherwise be lost beneath the roar of overdriven electric guitars. Dwyer's falsetto vocals on the majority of both of these tracks are also a bit different from what you'd expect out of a band of raging rock n' rollers, but the man's got a good voice for the high notes he's hitting, and the result is pure lysergic pop bliss.
Some elements from these two excellent tracks, which mark themselves as Putrifiers II's obvious singles, show up occasionally elsewhere on the album, as on the darker-sounding but still rockin' track "Lupine Dominus," or the slowed-down ballad "Goodnight Baby." However, as with a lot of the late 60s albums that inspire Dwyer and co, Putrifiers II does not really have a unified sound. The album's final track, "Wicked Park," has the same mannered, neo-Victorian sound that The Troggs cultivated on mostly-forgotten tracks like "Love Is All Around" and "Cousin Jane"--or, less obscurely, that The Rolling Stones dabbled with on "Lady Jane" and "As Tears Go By." It's the sort of thing that could get annoying if they did it a bunch of times, but seems like a fitting end to this collection. The title track, which is a six-plus minute midtempo pounder, actually sounds more like a track from Carrion Crawler/The Dream than anything else on the record, while "Will We Be Scared?" has a floating, ethereal sound. The weirdest track on the album is "Cloud #1," a two-minute noise drone that slowly rises to a high-volume crescendo, harking back to Dwyer's background in the late 90s noise scene.
Overall, Putrifiers II can't really be said to have a unified sound in the way that a lot of modern albums do. This isn't a bad thing, though. The changes from song to song keep things interesting, and demonstrate a greater range than most bands ever really display. The best songs--"Flood's New Light," "Wax Face," "Lupine Dominus"--are the ones that will keep you coming back, but there really isn't a bad song here (not even "Cloud #1," which admittedly might test a few people's patience--but come on, it's not even a full two minutes!). Putrifiers II is just another of the many classic rock n' roll albums John Dwyer's been involved with over the past decade and a half, and fans new and old will undoubtedly enjoy it.
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Thee Oh Sees will be performing in Richmond tomorrow night, Friday September 21, at Strange Matter (929 W. Grace St.), along with co-headliner Ty Segall and opening act Burglar Fucker. Doors open at 7 PM. The show has been sold out for quite a while, but if you really want a ticket, you may as well wander by and see if anyone has an extra.